Sunday, October 25, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Saved by the (cow) bell
October 24, 2009
Well it has been a while since we have written a blog entry and a lot has happened. We are both doing fine. We are both healthy right now. Yay!
So the weather in October is very interesting to say the least. There were a couple of days were we measured the temperature outside and it was 121 F. Oh my God! We have never sweated so much in our lives. Just so you know, a fan can't even cool you off in that type of heat. We pretty much just sat there and tried not to move too much. When the temperature is that high, all you can really do is take lots and lots of bucket baths. The water might be 90, but to you it feels absolutely wonderful :) October here is a mini hot season, so that's the reason for the ridiculous heat. Now that we are toward the end of October, the temperature is a lot more comfortable. The daytime temperature ranges between 90-105. What is sad is that we are happy to have a temperature of 95, that's comfortable to us! The nights are starting to get really cool. We go to bed with the fans blowing on us and we are hot. By 3 or 4 a.m., we are fighting each other for the sheets to cover up with. From what we have heard, the temperature should start to fall now. The daytime temperature during the winter is around 80 and we hear that it gets cold at night, 50-60s!
The house is really starting to come along. We have almost the entire house painted. The living room is a really pretty blue. Tim painted the kitchen. Well I will say that mixing paint here is very difficult. You buy your own pigments and add them to white paint. Tim was trying to get a burnt orange for the kitchen and ended up with peach :) Then he ran out of paint halfway through painting the room, so he decided to make the next batch a deep red. Well he ended up with florescent pink! He said there is no way he was having a peach and hot pink kitchen, so he decided to add some blue to the paint. He used all the blue that we had and the hot pink paint turned into a bright lavender. (LOL) Oh no it is completely ok to tease him about it, I did for a solid week. My special Timmy :) I painted most of the bedroom a sea foam color. There is one wall left, but we ran out of paint completely. We are going to buy some more and finish the bedroom off with a yellow accent wall. We also have to finish the living room by painting the mural. Please check out the pictures of the painted house :)
Surreal, our puppy, is getting huge! She can't fit into her harness anymore, so now she runs around with a bandanna on. She is now a big girl and stays outside when we are not home. She even sleeps/plays outside all throughout the night. We are teaching her to sit and shake. She kind of has it down as long as there is food involved. She is so much like lucky, its scary. Surreal has started to find her voice too. She now barks when people come into the courtyard and she sees them. She is not a big fan of strange black people coming into her courtyard. She loves our friend David. He came to visit and they played all the time. We still need to break her of biting. Those puppy teeth hurt! She is starting to get a little adventurous too. If we leave the courtyard door open, she wonders around outside. She is super cute and has Tim wrapped around her little paw.
Well as most of you know, school started on October 1st. Well lets just say that things are very different here and very interesting. Tim and I both enjoy and hate teaching at the same time. Hard to explain, but for me, the kids are such little snots some days. My kids and I have finally found a middle ground. They know exactly what I expect out of them and I try to make class as fun as possible. The kids really tried to push me in the beginning and unfortunately for them, I didn't budge. If anything, I just got more strict and they lost more points off their next test. One of the rules in my class is if I kick you out of class you lose 5 pts off your next test. When your test is only worth 20 pts, that really makes them not what to get kicked out. In the three weeks of teaching, I have accumulated eight names. The kids aren't really sure if I will actually take the points off the test or not, but they will find out on November 2, that I mean business as that is their first test. The only other remarkable thing that has happened in a class, was my first day with 5e C, a kid vomited during class. That was not a fun experience. I made the chef de class clean it up. YUCK!
As for me classes are quite a bit different from Becky's. I have 7 different classes that I teach. 3 classes are 7th graders and they act like it. They are so annoying some days. With 90 kids in each of those classes, lab is interesting. I have 23 computers that work so I have 23 kids come into the lab. They don't understand that everyone will get a turn in the lab and there have been several small riots when I open the doors. Kids getting mushed against the glass, hitting each other, yelling and then running for a computer; followed by at least one person coming back to retrieve a lost shoe. Once they settle down a little I have the chef de class read off the names of people that were in the lab before and they get kicked out so someone new gets a turn. It is funny to me but bothersome because they are wasting so much time. I also teach 4 classes of upper level high school. There are three high school levels, but it is much harder to get into high school here. So I teach the sophomores and juniors. They are much easier to teach and learn the things much faster. Which is nice until I am trying to plan lessons for them. They are done with something that would take the other classes all hour to do in about 15-20 minutes then I am having to try and make things up or letting them explore the computer, mostly playing games. So that is how most of my classes go and then I struggle to kick them out of the lab. The kids never want to leave, and kicking them out takes me shutting down their computers remotely and then yelling at them to leave. Then the cow bell starts to ring signaling the end of class and that they need to head to there next class. Save by the cow bell. After class is done I head home and hang out with Becky, play with the puppy and then head to bed.
Well it has been a while since we have written a blog entry and a lot has happened. We are both doing fine. We are both healthy right now. Yay!
So the weather in October is very interesting to say the least. There were a couple of days were we measured the temperature outside and it was 121 F. Oh my God! We have never sweated so much in our lives. Just so you know, a fan can't even cool you off in that type of heat. We pretty much just sat there and tried not to move too much. When the temperature is that high, all you can really do is take lots and lots of bucket baths. The water might be 90, but to you it feels absolutely wonderful :) October here is a mini hot season, so that's the reason for the ridiculous heat. Now that we are toward the end of October, the temperature is a lot more comfortable. The daytime temperature ranges between 90-105. What is sad is that we are happy to have a temperature of 95, that's comfortable to us! The nights are starting to get really cool. We go to bed with the fans blowing on us and we are hot. By 3 or 4 a.m., we are fighting each other for the sheets to cover up with. From what we have heard, the temperature should start to fall now. The daytime temperature during the winter is around 80 and we hear that it gets cold at night, 50-60s!
The house is really starting to come along. We have almost the entire house painted. The living room is a really pretty blue. Tim painted the kitchen. Well I will say that mixing paint here is very difficult. You buy your own pigments and add them to white paint. Tim was trying to get a burnt orange for the kitchen and ended up with peach :) Then he ran out of paint halfway through painting the room, so he decided to make the next batch a deep red. Well he ended up with florescent pink! He said there is no way he was having a peach and hot pink kitchen, so he decided to add some blue to the paint. He used all the blue that we had and the hot pink paint turned into a bright lavender. (LOL) Oh no it is completely ok to tease him about it, I did for a solid week. My special Timmy :) I painted most of the bedroom a sea foam color. There is one wall left, but we ran out of paint completely. We are going to buy some more and finish the bedroom off with a yellow accent wall. We also have to finish the living room by painting the mural. Please check out the pictures of the painted house :)
Surreal, our puppy, is getting huge! She can't fit into her harness anymore, so now she runs around with a bandanna on. She is now a big girl and stays outside when we are not home. She even sleeps/plays outside all throughout the night. We are teaching her to sit and shake. She kind of has it down as long as there is food involved. She is so much like lucky, its scary. Surreal has started to find her voice too. She now barks when people come into the courtyard and she sees them. She is not a big fan of strange black people coming into her courtyard. She loves our friend David. He came to visit and they played all the time. We still need to break her of biting. Those puppy teeth hurt! She is starting to get a little adventurous too. If we leave the courtyard door open, she wonders around outside. She is super cute and has Tim wrapped around her little paw.
Well as most of you know, school started on October 1st. Well lets just say that things are very different here and very interesting. Tim and I both enjoy and hate teaching at the same time. Hard to explain, but for me, the kids are such little snots some days. My kids and I have finally found a middle ground. They know exactly what I expect out of them and I try to make class as fun as possible. The kids really tried to push me in the beginning and unfortunately for them, I didn't budge. If anything, I just got more strict and they lost more points off their next test. One of the rules in my class is if I kick you out of class you lose 5 pts off your next test. When your test is only worth 20 pts, that really makes them not what to get kicked out. In the three weeks of teaching, I have accumulated eight names. The kids aren't really sure if I will actually take the points off the test or not, but they will find out on November 2, that I mean business as that is their first test. The only other remarkable thing that has happened in a class, was my first day with 5e C, a kid vomited during class. That was not a fun experience. I made the chef de class clean it up. YUCK!
As for me classes are quite a bit different from Becky's. I have 7 different classes that I teach. 3 classes are 7th graders and they act like it. They are so annoying some days. With 90 kids in each of those classes, lab is interesting. I have 23 computers that work so I have 23 kids come into the lab. They don't understand that everyone will get a turn in the lab and there have been several small riots when I open the doors. Kids getting mushed against the glass, hitting each other, yelling and then running for a computer; followed by at least one person coming back to retrieve a lost shoe. Once they settle down a little I have the chef de class read off the names of people that were in the lab before and they get kicked out so someone new gets a turn. It is funny to me but bothersome because they are wasting so much time. I also teach 4 classes of upper level high school. There are three high school levels, but it is much harder to get into high school here. So I teach the sophomores and juniors. They are much easier to teach and learn the things much faster. Which is nice until I am trying to plan lessons for them. They are done with something that would take the other classes all hour to do in about 15-20 minutes then I am having to try and make things up or letting them explore the computer, mostly playing games. So that is how most of my classes go and then I struggle to kick them out of the lab. The kids never want to leave, and kicking them out takes me shutting down their computers remotely and then yelling at them to leave. Then the cow bell starts to ring signaling the end of class and that they need to head to there next class. Save by the cow bell. After class is done I head home and hang out with Becky, play with the puppy and then head to bed.
Our First Month in Boulsa
September 30, 2009
Hello everybody!
Well Tim and I had an awesome time in Ouaga. Then again, I really don't think that you can ever have a bad time in Ouaga. It is most certainly our haven here in Burkina Faso. Tim and I gorged ourselves on food. I have discovered a new liking for veal cord on bleu. Yep I love ham now! You could get me to touch the stuff in the U.S. Now stand back or you might lose finger :) Tim still prefers his pizza, but the next time we travel to Ouaga, he is all about the veal. Staying at the transit house is such a nice change. We get to sleep on real mattresses, that is something of a luxury here. Going to Ouaga refreshes both your mind and body after spending a bunch of time in village.
The house is coming along. Tim and I have purchased two types of paint. We have quick lime paint and oil based paint. We have certainly gotten a workout with the quick lime paint. We both emphatically state: “Whitewashing SUCKS!” We now understand why that form of paint is rarely used in the U.S. Anymore. Tim ordered furniture for the house. He designed an awesome cabinet unit. It is 2 meters long, 1 meter tall, and 40 cm in depth. It is absolutely marvelous! I have been able to organize almost everything we have into the cabinet or on the desk. I love being organized :) Tim also had the carpenter build a cubby unit for our clothes. This one is 2 meters tall, 1.5 meters long, and 30 cm in depth. Yeah, my husband likes them big :) It was rather interesting to watch a donkey cart pull into our courtyard loaded down with the two pieces of massive furniture. The poor guys that had to maneuver them into the house were wonderful though. They got both pieces through the front door and into the house without bumping into anything.
The courtyard is still a work in progress. There are hundreds of bur/thorn plants. It seems like the week after we pull them all up, they have grown in again. It is a little bit of a daunting tak, especially with the climate here. I have been busy planting trees all over the front of the courtyard. I have eight spots planted with moringa. Moringa trees are not very good for shade, but they are good for nutrition. You can harvest the leaves and dry them. The amount of vitamins in the leaves is remarkable. If the people here in Burkina only knew how great these leaves were and used them properly to cook with, they would have the majority of the vitamins that they need.
Tim and I have been having meetings at the lycée this week. School starts tomorrow. Yay! Tim is going to be teaching seven different classes. He has two 1er, two 2nd, and three 4e classes. He is going to be teaching a total of 14 hours a week. Not too bad compared to other IT volunteers here in Burkina. I am teaching math to two 5e classes. We are both hoping that the kids are going to be nice to us and understand that we have only been studying French for three and a half months. I guess tomorrow will tell.
We have a new addition to the family. We got a puppy! The boy who gets our water for us found her. She has been here for four days now. We named her Surreal. She is so tiny. We are not sure how old she is but the first two days she was here, she wouldn't drink water, just milk. We both think that if she was weaned, then they just started. She is pretty darn cute. She doesn't do a whole lot right now, but we are still pretty new to her. Tim ended up sleeping with her out in the living room her first night. When I got up the next morning, it was a rather cute sight; Tim sleeping and the puppy curled up right next to him. Of course, we are having a ton of fun playing the potty game. Anytime we see her try and squat, we make a mad dash at her and try to get her outside. You have got to love training a puppy. We have bought her a few toy balls from the marché, but we have to be careful that the neighborhoods kids don't steal them. They don't understand the idea that we buy toys for our dog to play with. We both love to stun them with our bizarre western ideas and habits.
Hello everybody!
Well Tim and I had an awesome time in Ouaga. Then again, I really don't think that you can ever have a bad time in Ouaga. It is most certainly our haven here in Burkina Faso. Tim and I gorged ourselves on food. I have discovered a new liking for veal cord on bleu. Yep I love ham now! You could get me to touch the stuff in the U.S. Now stand back or you might lose finger :) Tim still prefers his pizza, but the next time we travel to Ouaga, he is all about the veal. Staying at the transit house is such a nice change. We get to sleep on real mattresses, that is something of a luxury here. Going to Ouaga refreshes both your mind and body after spending a bunch of time in village.
The house is coming along. Tim and I have purchased two types of paint. We have quick lime paint and oil based paint. We have certainly gotten a workout with the quick lime paint. We both emphatically state: “Whitewashing SUCKS!” We now understand why that form of paint is rarely used in the U.S. Anymore. Tim ordered furniture for the house. He designed an awesome cabinet unit. It is 2 meters long, 1 meter tall, and 40 cm in depth. It is absolutely marvelous! I have been able to organize almost everything we have into the cabinet or on the desk. I love being organized :) Tim also had the carpenter build a cubby unit for our clothes. This one is 2 meters tall, 1.5 meters long, and 30 cm in depth. Yeah, my husband likes them big :) It was rather interesting to watch a donkey cart pull into our courtyard loaded down with the two pieces of massive furniture. The poor guys that had to maneuver them into the house were wonderful though. They got both pieces through the front door and into the house without bumping into anything.
The courtyard is still a work in progress. There are hundreds of bur/thorn plants. It seems like the week after we pull them all up, they have grown in again. It is a little bit of a daunting tak, especially with the climate here. I have been busy planting trees all over the front of the courtyard. I have eight spots planted with moringa. Moringa trees are not very good for shade, but they are good for nutrition. You can harvest the leaves and dry them. The amount of vitamins in the leaves is remarkable. If the people here in Burkina only knew how great these leaves were and used them properly to cook with, they would have the majority of the vitamins that they need.
Tim and I have been having meetings at the lycée this week. School starts tomorrow. Yay! Tim is going to be teaching seven different classes. He has two 1er, two 2nd, and three 4e classes. He is going to be teaching a total of 14 hours a week. Not too bad compared to other IT volunteers here in Burkina. I am teaching math to two 5e classes. We are both hoping that the kids are going to be nice to us and understand that we have only been studying French for three and a half months. I guess tomorrow will tell.
We have a new addition to the family. We got a puppy! The boy who gets our water for us found her. She has been here for four days now. We named her Surreal. She is so tiny. We are not sure how old she is but the first two days she was here, she wouldn't drink water, just milk. We both think that if she was weaned, then they just started. She is pretty darn cute. She doesn't do a whole lot right now, but we are still pretty new to her. Tim ended up sleeping with her out in the living room her first night. When I got up the next morning, it was a rather cute sight; Tim sleeping and the puppy curled up right next to him. Of course, we are having a ton of fun playing the potty game. Anytime we see her try and squat, we make a mad dash at her and try to get her outside. You have got to love training a puppy. We have bought her a few toy balls from the marché, but we have to be careful that the neighborhoods kids don't steal them. They don't understand the idea that we buy toys for our dog to play with. We both love to stun them with our bizarre western ideas and habits.
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